


let's call it remembrance

by hissingmiseries



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Break Up, Chaptered, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Future Fic, Gen, Relationship Issues, Teenage Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-21 09:46:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9542318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hissingmiseries/pseuds/hissingmiseries
Summary: A story involving a Polaroid camera, hair straighteners, the cinema, a break-up, and a whole lot of memories.





	1. lights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inloveamateursatbest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inloveamateursatbest/gifts).



> i saw a youtubers/photography type of thing as a prompt and i kind of just...... *lightbulb*. this turned angsty very quickly, and there's basically no coherent plot. 
> 
> content contains: queer!liv; hints of liv/gabby, meaningless liv/jacob, gabby/jacob, robert/aaron. underage drinking, implied underage sex; angst over canonical themes (ashley's dementia, robron's instability, charity&sanda's neglect); character death; relationship break-ups; multi-year coverage. i also fiddled with the mechanics of polaroid cameras and pictures for Effect.
> 
> different warnings to come with further chapters.

-

 

_french_plait.mp4._

_Hey, guys! It's Gabby here, and today I'm gonna to be teaching you guys how to do a regular French plait down the back of your hair. So, if you don't know how to do it or you want to touch up your skills, keep watching._

_What we're gonna do first is brush your hair through, and then you need to pick up a small section of your h— Liv!_

 

The first video that Liv is in, she never actually means to appear in in the first place.

She walks in without knocking and Gabby is sat cross-legged on the floor, in front of a video camera propped up on three mechanical legs. Her hair is straight for once, its natural bounce absent. Her eyes are very wide and she has too much mascara on but this is Gabby, and to Liv she is pretty no matter what she's in.

Gabby who is staring at her, bright pink. "Liv!"

"Alright?" Liv says. "Filming sommat?"

"No."

Her hair sways around her shoulders. The ends curl a little with heat damage. 

Liv eyes the video camera then her friend suspiciously. "What were you doing?"

Gabby flushes again. "Nothing."

"Yeah you were," Liv argues, brow furrowing a little; this is Gabby, she tells her everything. They never hide things, that's how they work. "You were filming yourself. What were you doing? It weren't dodgy, were it?"

"No," Gabby says, indignant. She's been there, done that before. "It was just — a hair thing."

Liv pauses, chewing her lower lip, before shrugging, "Cool," and Gabby visibly relaxes. "Never seen you with straight hair before. It suits you."

It does, surprisingly; it frames her face, makes her look older and smarter. Combined with winged eyeliner and maybe a peach blusher, she'd probably be able to buy drinks. "Thanks," she smiles. "I'll do yours if you like."

The straighteners lie on the floor, menacingly. Liv grimaces a little. 

"No, ta," she says, shaking her head. "Those things freak me out. And I've seen all those videos of girls burning their hair off and shit."

Gabby rolls her eyes. "Yeah, but I know what I'm doing. My mum's a stylist, remember?"

"Doesn't mean you are."

Liv has many bad experiences with hair stylers, and the scars on the back of her neck prove it; but Gabby's looking at her, eyes bright beneath the lighting, and there's something fun in the curl of her lips and the way she quirks her eyebrow promptingly. And it's Gabby, isn't it? It's Gabby. Liv likes making her smile. 

"Go on, then," she sighs, pulling her hair out of its tie. It's rough, it hasn't been washed for a few days.

Gabby grins and picks the Jaws of Death up off the floor and gets to work. 

The video camera beeps red.

 

Later, when Liv has gone, Gabby cuts out the beginning and retitles it _straightening_tips_ _.mp4_. She posts it on YouTube and gets fourteen views and three likes within the hour.

She smiles to herself, heart thrumming a little. 

Three likes and she got to play with Liv's hair for twenty minutes. A pretty good day, if she says so herself.

 

-

 

Liv doesn't know when she started getting into filming and stuff. She thinks it's somewhere around that time of The Stripping Incident, which caused a whole load of upset, and that day Robert came downstairs with a cardbox box filled with old shit he was chucking out.

 

"Right," he'd announced as he dumped it on the kitchen table. There was so much dust you could almost choke on it. "Anyone want anything before this goes to the tip?"

Aaron looked up from his toast, scoffed, and looked back down again. Liv mirrored him.

Robert did his typical eye-roll and opened it up; it was like a treasure chest, pulled from the garden. Some old vinyls, handfuls of yellowing paperwork, cassettes, even a watch with crooked hands that must be worth a few grand by now. He tossed it aside with a carelessness that only people who have everything they could ever want have.

Then he reached into the underbelly of the box and pulled out this clunky, blocky thing.

"Oh," he said. "Didn't know I still had this."

Liv looked, scrunched her nose up. "What _is_ it?"

"It's a Polaroid," Robert replied, pointing to the bulbous eye of the lens. It wasn't an unfamiliar name to Liv; she'd heard of it before, the whole  _shake it like a Polaroid s_ aying. She just thought they were a myth, that she'd never actually, you know, _see_ one. "One of those instant-photo cameras."

"I know what a Polaroid is," Liv scowled. "Does it even work? It looks a hundred years old."

In response, Robert hit the power button, raised it up to his eye and pressed the shutter. It flashed like something out of church: like how you imagine angels appearing. Really fucking brightly.

Aaron recoiled like he'd been stung. 

The camera spat out the photo: this little white square, glossy and blank. 

"Huh," Robert said. "It even still has film in. Bloody hell, I thought I'd chucked this out this ages ago."

Liv's cornflakes had turned to mush in their bowl. She was kind of peering over at the device, trying to look less interested than she really was, when Aaron spoke up, still grouchy from the interruption.

"You had a Polaroid?" he asked, smirking a little. "Fucking hipster." He liked doing that; he was allowed to make fun of Robert, it was established. He could call Rob any name under the sun but God forbid somebody else try it.

Robert frowned, indignantly. "Um, excuse me, these were all the rage back in the nineties," he said, then instantly regretted it when both Aaron and Liv started to snicker. "Fine," he went on, shoving the camera back into the box. "Since neither of you can appreciate  _art_." Then he walked out, nose firmly in the air, in his typical Robert way.

Liv watched him, faintly amused. "What did you _marry_?"

Through a mouthful of toast, her brother huffed. "Ask meself that every day."

 

The photo stayed on the table for hours. Liv found it again a while later, and grinned: her brother, brow furrowed in concentration, the newspaper sprawled out beneath his plate. The colours were soft and hazy, with gentle white outlines, like he had a halo around him or something. 

She pinned it to her bedroom door. It faded a few weeks later, but it's still there.

 

-

 

"The fuck is that?" Noah pouts. He wrestles the camera from Liv's hands and peers through the sight.

Jacob shoots him a look. "What do you think it is?"

"Is this what cameras looked like in the olden days?" There's a flash, one so bright it nearly blinds them all. Gabby jumps and Liv launches forward, tears the device back.

"Careful, ya moron," she snaps. "You'll waste the film."

She fished it out of the box, left by the front door by Robert, and now she's sat on the cricket green; it's sunny, the sky is blue and endless. The green is littered with daisies and dandelions and sometimes a stray tennis ball comes flying over, persued by a dog. Jacob's nicked a bottle of cordial from the shop and Noah brought crisps from the Woolpack and Gabby is complaining, as usual, about her annoying little brother.

They're all distracted now, like moths around light. 

"Does it work?" Gabby asks. 

Liv nods. "Robert was testing it out this morning." She presses a random button; the shutter opens and closes like an eyelid. "He was gonna toss it."

"You should sell it," Noah suggests.

"It'll make a mint if it's vintage," Jacob adds.

She shrugs a little, turning it over in her hands. It's very heavy, its corners smooth and rounded, the exact yellow shade of custard. "Might as well," she says. "Better than it just going to the tip."

Noah is spread out across the grass like a rug, on his belly, threading his fingers through the grass. He looks up at Liv through his eyelashes, that little Noah smirk on his face. It's early, there's no gel in his hair and Liv likes him better like this: soft and pliable. Usually he's a little shit. Charity is to blame for that, she thinks. Charity is to blame for a lot when it comes to Noah.

"Snap me," he says, rolling onto his back, flailing his limbs out dramatically. "I'm a born model."

Liv giggles and obliges. The flash fills their world then dies as quickly as it comes; the photo pours out, into her hand.

"No wonder Robert wanted to throw that out," Jacob comments, pawing his eyes. "He was probably sick of going blind all the time."

 

Liv pulls out cigarettes and hands them around. She leans in close to light Gabby's; her hair smells like coconut.

There are clouds beginning to form, white, shapeless masses above their heads.

Jacob is toying with the camera now. The sun has brought his freckles out and he's lay on his back, using his rucksack as a headrest, with a pair of cheap sunglasses on his face; he's this long, lanky frame with a mop of curls and a brittleness to his eyes. It's been there ever since David. Even after he got the all-clear and things moved forward, Jake had this strange firm set to his shoulders and sometimes he started crying out of nowhere. It was throwing; Jacob was always the cheery one of them all. Sadness doesn't suit him like it does everybody else.

The photo Liv took of Noah has bloomed. It's a square of green and lemon blonde and a drag of bright blue. 

"I like this," Jacob says, out of nowhere. "It's cool."

"It's a camera," Liv deadpans.

"Yeah, but — it's nice." Trust Jacob to be like that: seeing the beauty in everything. "The pictures are nice."

He holds it up to Liv in silent offering, asking permission, and she nods. There's a flash and out comes a photo, the lines already beginning to form. It's of Gabby, her head on Liv's thigh, re-applying her reddest lipstick. She looks uncharacteristically relaxed, surrounded by flowers and green and cigarette smoke.

 

-

 

Gabby and Jacob are weird. They spent a lot of time hating each other, but this is a tiny village and it was only a matter of time before they came back together again, like elastic. 

It's nice, sometimes. He seems to be the only constant in her life right now: nothing else is concrete other than Jacob, always there with them. 

Other times it's horrible. They broke up a lot and it was always vicious. Gabby yelled things and Jacob just kind of stood there and took it, never raising his voice. He has always been soft, it seems; he is not like the rest of them, who wear their pain like armour. He lets it seep in, like sun cream. 

It used to be Noah who everybody felt protective of, but then he stormed up to Benny in school, the boy who kept touching Gabby up and smacked him right across the face, which was mad since Gabby had barely even spoken to Noah back then. Still, it worked. He was only small but he gelled his hair back until it shone and older boys avoided him like the plague.  _That's the Dingle kid,_ they'd say.  _He's batshit crazy._

He's not, but it's a better image to have than what he really is.

Now it's Jacob they all protect. He doesn't know it but the rest do. It's like their code of conduct: Jacob is soft, Jacob is stringy. Keep him safe.

 

-

 

"Can I take one?" Gabby asks.

"Sure," Liv nods, and Jake hands the camera over. Gabby handles it clumsily and brings it up to her eye. They all brace themselves and grin.

It's the best one yet. Liv to the left, hair loose from its tie, cigarette between her lips. Jacob in the centre, lazily sipping from the cordial bottle. Noah's unruly head of hair in the right corner, face pressed into the grass, smelling of summer. 

"That's cute," Gabby smiles when it sets. She gives it to Liv who smirks and tucks it into her pocket. "You should keep 'em. Make an album with them."

"How cheesy," Noah pipes up, but he's smiling too. As is Jacob, whose cheeks are burning red in the sun. 

She indulges in the idea a little; she is taking Art for her exams, after all. It could be a cool place to practice with all the new supplies she got for Christmas: those charcoal pencils and coloured card and that super expensive set of watercolour pens Robert bought her that she just _had_ to hug him for because, well, they were mint and they'd cost a fortune. She hasn't used them yet, she's been too afraid of screwing them up and ruining the nibs. They've just kind of sat on her desk and waited.

But then her realistic side comes through and ew, that's just soppy.

"They fade super fast," she says. "I think ya have to store them in a drawer. Away from sunlight, y'know."

"You don't want Aaron finding 'em," Jacob points out. "He'd kill us."

Liv shrugs a little; he would but he also probably wouldn't.

"I'll keep them safe," she promises. The bottle is passed around again. She takes an easy swallow.

 

It is high summer; the sun does not set until late, but it is a weekend and they don't make any effort to go home. Liv silences her phone and tosses it into the grass.

She leans back, bumping her shoulder against Gabby's.

"Alright?" Gabby asks, quietly. Her voice is soft and low.

Liv nods. "You?"

Gabby smiles; her lips are red like cherries. "Yeah," she says. "Just fine."

She's very pretty. I mean, that goes without saying, but Liv likes these moments where it feels like just her and Gabby on the green and she can really look. Gabby's eyes have little flecks of green in them and her eyelashes are very long and curly.

"Take a photo?" Liv asks, her throat a little hoarse. 

Gabby nods.

She lifts the camera and presses the button (and damn, she really needs to figure out how to turn the flash off). The colours bloom and it's them two, on the grass, grinning up at the lens.

That's Liv's favourite. 

 

Jacob's phone has been buzzing for the past twenty minutes. He's too scared to put it on silent so eventually he answers and endures five straight minutes of David Metcalfe's lectures.

"I should go," he says. "It's getting late."

It is, later than they'd initially thought, so they all stand. Liv reaches instinctively for Noah and Jacob takes Gabby's hand to help her up.

"See you all tomorrow," Gabby says, and presses a kiss to Jacob's cheek, and then Liv's. Her lips are cool against Liv's skin, and leave a perfect red outline.

 

-

 

"Liv?" 

Robert pokes his head round her bedroom door. His hair is tousled and scruffy, and he looks very tired.

She doesn't look up but says, "What?"

"Do you have that camera?"

"No," she replies without missing a beat. There's a pause, one where she's not sure if he's left or not, so she glances and he's still there. There's a face on him that says he doesn't believe her.

"Okay," he says simply, and walks out. She can't tell if he's smiling or not, but she doesn't really care.

 

-

 

They meet again behind Wylie's. Liv gets a text from Gabby: _bring ur camera._

It's a beautiful day, better than the last. The air is hot and dry and the sun is fierce, shining down on Liv's bright hair and Gabby's bare shoulders. They meet in twos; Gabby-and-Jacob, Liv-and-Noah, and haul themselves up onto the flat roof of the barn. It's too sunny to be cooped up inside.

Gabby looks sad. Not in floods of tears or anything, but there's a look in her eyes, a  _be careful_ look. It gets bad sometimes and it's bad today.

"I miss my dad," she says. Ashley is still alive but like, barely. He's a ghost floating around the village, not talking to people, just blankly staring. It's sad. 

Jacob shuffles in his place. "How's Arthur doing?"

She shrugs. Gabby does love Arthur, she does, but their differences are bigger than their similarities and sometimes it swallows her whole; different mums, different ages. Their only link is their dad, but sometimes that it isn't a good thing. Sometimes Gabby looks at Arthur and just sees _AshleyAshleyAshley_ and it makes her feel sick.

She wishes it were like Liv and Aaron. They argue and Liv lies to him then gets angry when he does the same but at the end of the day they're each other's and it'll probably always stay like that.

Noah has gone very quiet, as has Liv; they have never really got the whole dad thing. Liv has Robert but it's not the same, not really.

"Dotty cries a lot," Gabby says. "She doesn't really know what's going on. Neither does Laurel."

Liv flinches. It can't be healthy for a kid to be brought up in that mess. 

 

The camera sits where a campfire normally would. Its colour looks brighter in the sunlight.

Noah fondles it in his hands. "Does it have any film left?" 

Liv nods.

(She'd walked down to the breakfast table in the morning, hair up in a bun, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Aaron was still in bed. Robert was sat at the table with a plate of toast, a newspaper and a box of Polaroid film with a red bow on the corner.

Liv had played dumb.  _I thought you chucked that camera._

Robert had just smirked.  _I thought I did too._ )

"I really like it," Gabby admits, taking the camera from Noah. "I dunno. Something about it is just cool." A pause, then she continues. "Can I borrow it? I've got a media project for school and our last camera got broken."

"Sure," Liv nods. Even though it's to Gabby, it feels a bit weird giving it away. It's  _hers_ , and she's never been good at sharing. "Bring it back in one piece though, yeah?"

"Course," Gabby smiles.

 

-

 

Gabby sits on the couch at home and presses every button until the flash turns off.

Her dad is in the armchair, lost in his own world. He doesn't notice her lift the camera and take two, three, four photos.

She shakes them until the images form and takes them upstairs, buries them deep into her drawer. They're very grainy and shitty but she doesn't care. She's not letting them fade. No way in hell.

 

-

 

"Ta," Liv says when she gets the camera back. They're outside Mulberry Cottage; Dotty is gurgling in Gabby's arms, a blob wrapped up in a blanket. 

"I figured out how to turn the flash off," Gabby says. 

"Thank god," Liv smiles. Her eyesight is more than grateful.

 

When she gets home, she expects it to be empty, but Robert is stretched out across the sofa like a cat with his laptop on his belly. One leg dangles and his arm is folded behind his head.

"Thought you were going out with Gabby," he says out of nowhere; Liv doesn't expect it, and startles. "Aaron's in the bar if you want him."

"No, I'm just —" she begins, hiding the camera behind her back. "Getting a jacket."

Robert frowns. "It's red hot outside."

She shrugs, innocently. "I'm cold."

He raises an eyebrow and Liv scowls; Aaron is the most oblivious person in the world when it comes to her but Robert's on another level. It's annoying. "Mmhmm. What's behind your back?"

"Nothing."

He gives her a pointed look. A dad look. Ugh. 

Reluctantly, she unveils the camera, and Robert smiles a little. "Are you getting on with it?"

She blinks. "'s alright."

"It's a bit redundant when you've got a phone in your pocket, I guess," he says. "But, I dunno, I think there's something nostalgic about it. There is for me, at least. That's basically a fossil to you, isn't it?"

"I like how it prints them straight away. It's less hassle."

Robert rearranges himself, pushes himself up into a decent sitting position and angles his laptop lid downwards: a silent invitation. She takes it, sitting beside him. It used to feel forced but now it kind of feels natural, now they don't hate each other like they did.

Not that she _likes_ him. Nuh-uh.

"Finally turned the flash off," she announces, taking a photo of him in example. He doesn't expect it, so he looks a little odd; she chuckles as the colours set. "Attractive."

He huffs with amusement and takes the camera. "I'm amazed this still works."

"It's not bad, to say it's super old."

He eyes her, playfully. "I am _not_ super old."

"You're pretty old."

"I am _not_." It's indignant but — not offended. Liv wonders if she's hurt him because she always manages to hurt people when she takes the mick, but then he grins and she relaxes a little. That's something else she kind of likes about Rob: when he's not in a mood, he can have a laugh. 

He changes the subject, turns the camera over in his hands. "So you're getting into taking pictures and stuff?"

She shrugs. "Never really thought about it."

"Because there's much better quality cameras than this on the market," he continues. "If you want to turn it into a hobby."

"What would I take pictures of?" Liv frowns in thought; she's only ever really taken pictures of Gabby. Not that that's a bad thing. Gabby is extremely photogenic.

"Anything you like," he replies, smiling a little. "The village. Your friends. Me," he adds with a cheesy grin. Liv smirks, and obliges, snapping another picture which Robert is actually prepared for this time round and it looks much better; his smile reaches his eyes and he looks happy. That sounds like it should go without saying but — it's weird how many people around Liv seem to be unhappy. 

"I should get a case for it," she says. "Or a strap for around my neck, so I don't drop it. Cause ya know I will."

Robert opens his laptop and types something. "I'm sure I can find you one."

He moves and positions it so they can both see the screen and they sit there for ages, scrolling through eBay.

 

She finds the two photos down the side of the sofa a week later. They've been cushioned and secured so the colours haven't faded and they're nice, alright? They're nice. She likes that capture the moment thing.

 

-

 

Her photos congregate in her desk drawer: her, her friends, Robert, her brother. Tens of them.

She thinks about putting them into an album, but — nah, she doesn't need to. She has the real thing.

 

-

 

They finally put Ashley in a home.

Liv doesn't see how that's anything other than good news but then Gabby rings her up at one in the morning and cries her heart out down the line and Liv feels something in her heart twinge, _o_ _uch._

"It's for the best, Gabs," she says, voice low. "He needs to be with —"  _people like him_ "— people who can keep him safe."

Gabby sniffs. She's clearly been crying for hours. "I know, but like, _why_?"

"Because he's not," Liv begins. It takes a little thought to arrange her words. "He'll be happier there."

"It'll just confuse him," Gabby argues. "All those new people. He knows us here, he knows his home."

Liv clears her throat. "Gabby," she says softly. "He doesn't recognise you anymore."

There's a silence just long enough to grow uncomfortable before she speaks. "Why him, though? What did he ever do wrong?"

She has a point. Liv's dad was a monster and he died quickly, suddenly. Like ripping off a plaster. Ashley never did anything but he's the one who's walking around and decaying and his family has to watch it unfold. Shit, that must hurt. Liv doesn't realise how strong Gabby is sometimes.

Liv starts to say  _life's not fair_ but stops herself for fear of sounding too much like Robert. 

She wishes she could be there to hold Gabby, the way she always does. 

But it's late and the floorboards aren't her friend. And she keeps hearing raised voices coming from her brother's room, which is never a good sign.

 

"You okay?" Liv asks. 

Gabby hiccups a little. "I don't want to lose him."

"I know," she sighs. "I know. I'm here for ya, yeah? If ya need to talk."

"Thanks, Liv." Her voice is patchy down the line. "Love you."

Liv's heart leaps inside her chest but she tells herself, _no. This isn't about you_. "Love you too."

 

-

 

Aaron looks very tired in the morning. There are purple casts beneath his eyes and he pours too much milk into his tea.

Robert is sat at the table with him, close but not touching, which Liv can tell means they've had an argument over something or other. Not a serious one, though: they'd be at opposite ends of the room if that was the case.

It's kind of sad that Liv can tell that.

"Mornin'," he says when she comes downstairs. Robert says nothing but offers her a smile. "D'ya want a lift to school or are ya catching the bus?"

"Bus," she says. She's not, and they all know that, but no one says anything. "Then I'm going into town with Gabby and them lot."

Robert bites a piece of toast. His hair is a tornado of tufts. "I ordered you some more film for the camera. Should be here this afternoon."

"Cheers, Rob," she nods. "I used the last of it last night." There was a particularly nice constellation outside and she kind of had to shoot it. Liv wonders when she got so sappy. 

She wolfs down her breakfast and legs it out the door, bag banging against the small of her back. The heat is everywhere, almost oppressive, and the yellow of the sun turns the sky almost green. 

Her camera swings around her neck like a pendulum. It's almost a part of her body now. Nothing's ever felt more natural.

 

-

 

They crunch through a field of dry grass, loud and alive with summer. They're all a little shiny and sweaty and Noah is complaining, in his quiet Noah way, about the heat and the brightness and how Charity didn't even notice him this morning.

"'s alright, Noah," Liv says. "You've got me."

He tucks into her side like a fussy dog. Her arm falls across his shoulders. "I know."

They stop when they reach the bridge; the water rushes beneath them like a stampede.

"Don't perv, ya weirdos." Liv slides her bag off and rummages for her change of clothes — some jeans and a tank top. Gabby does the same and Noah and Jacob turn their backs, fishing out their own clothes. 

"I'll keep lookout," Jake announces and they all get changed there, right on that bridge.

Gabby pulls on a t-shirt and runs her fingers through her hair. "I brought snacks," she says, pulling out silver cans of Coke and a Pringles tube. "If you're up for a picnic."

Liv takes the camera off, puts it down beside her feet and untwists her bra strap. Her shoulders are reddening. "Always."

 

It's Noah's fault. They all decide that. He doesn't mean to but — still his fault.

He turns around a little too fast and takes a step and yeah, Liv probably shouldn't have put the camera there but shit, she didn't expect her pseudo-little brother to  _kick it into the river._

It falls like a pebble; down and down then lands with a sizeable splash, bobs a little and sinks. And then it's gone. 

Everyone stares. The sun beats down accusingly.

"Well done, Noah," Jacob deadpans. "Well fucking done."

 

-

 

He couldn't be more apologetic. Liv swallows and shakes her head and says  _it's fine, Noah, it was an accident_ but she feels sick for the rest of the day. It's just a fucking camera; it shouldn't feel this bad. It shouldn't hurt like it does.

She spends the picnic on a hinge, balancing on the brink of tears. Blaming the ones that escape on the sun. Cursing herself on her lack of sunglasses.

Gabby closes a hand on Liv's knee, leans in close, and it's helpful but not really. Liv is too focused on keeping her breathing even.

Noah looks up at her with sad, wide eyes and swallows. "'m sorry, Liv."

"Noah," she says, firmly. "It's fine."

He nods dumbly and goes back to playing with the grass. 

 

She gets home and the pub is buzzing but the back room is quiet. She storms in and slams the door; the photo frames shake on the wall.

Her brother and Robert are on the couch, watching crappy daytime telly. Neither of them question her lack of uniform; they both look up when she arrives and startle at the obvious look on her face and redness of her cheeks. She can feel tears before she realises she's crying.

"Liv," Aaron says, immediately standing up. "Liv, what's wrong?"

She sniffs, drags a hand across her eyes. "I — the camera broke." She looks down at Robert, whose face is a little scrunched up. "Robert, I'm so sorry."

He softens, shaking his head. "Liv, it's fine," he says. "I was going to throw it out, anyway. It's not a problem." He says it like it's true, so Liv takes a breath and tries to convince herself.

Aaron makes her a cuppa and sits her down, whilst Robert wheedles out the details of the situation. His face straightens when she mentions Noah; that's something that's always confused her. Robert got along with Noah until one day he just — didn't. Something must have happened between them.

"It's an old, rubbish Polaroid," he says. "It's not a loss."

"Yeah, but, it was _mine_ ," Liv protests. Her throat is thick and phlegmy. "I were supposed to take care of it."

Robert ponders over that for a minute, then shrugs ever so slightly. "We can't help accidents, Liv. Besides, this is an excuse to upgrade."

There's no bright side to this. She sighs, shoulders sinking. "I can never do _anything_ right," she mutters.

It's not self-indulgent, just honest. Robert exchanges a look with her brother and his jaw sets in thought. Something travels between them, telepathically. It's weird how they manage to do that: have entire conversations without saying a word.

Gabby once said it's a side effect of loving someone. You can read them like a map.

Gabby says some weird shit sometimes.


	2. camera

-

 

"Are ya serious?" Liv blurts out.

Robert swallows. "I can take it back if you don't —"

"No, no," she says. A grin breaks out across her face. "Don't ya dare."

Liv didn't want anything big doing for her fifteenth, so they're sat here in the back room of the pub, complete with paper party hats and a chocolate cake. The air smells like frosting.

Aaron is sat opposite her, a too-big jumper on his shoulders and a relaxed, hopeful little smile. "Ya like it?"

She hasn't unboxed it yet; just staring at the packaging is enough for her. It's very sleek and pretty and on the back it lists everything it can do,  _24.2 MP DX-Format CMOS Sensor_ ,  _ISO sensitivity of 12800_  and other things she doesn't understand. 

"F — Robert, this must've cost —"

"Don't worry about that," he interjects. "Open it."

She does. She's ever so gentle; it feels so shiny, so new and she's horribly good at breaking things. 

"Batteries are already in," Robert announces, like a prompt. It's the type of camera you see professionals using, all smooth and polished; she turns it on and it wakes up, the shutter opens with a delicate whirr. 

Through the viewfinder, the colours are insane. The village is bright with its hills and its flowers but it's here, under the strip lighting of the kitchen that things really look — alive.

"Aaron," she says. "Smile." 

He does, half-heartedly, and the photo is effortlessly sharp. His dull jumper burns a thick, soupy red on the screen.

The delight must show on her face because Robert leans in and smiles. "You like it, then?"

And you know what? She _has_ to hug him for this one.

It would be rude not to.

 

-

 

She meets Jacob at the bus stop. The trees reach over and blot out the sky, casting leafy shadows on the pavements. Summer has brought the freckles out on his cheeks.

"Hello," he says. "No Gabs?"

Liv shrugs. "She said she's coming in late. She'll meet us on the rec."

He nods, but his face sags a little; he always looks lonely without Gabby. They're like their own little double act, never one complete without the other. 

Noah arrives a few minutes later, his tie hanging loosely around his neck. He's still hesitant around Liv: walking slowly, carefully, like she's a grenade. Like she'll explode at him.

She reaches out and ruffles his hair, _hello_. That seems to work.

 

They all end up skipping, unsurprisingly. It's not their fault that it's double maths today.

The meadow is this big, endless sheet of grass, studded with flowers. A border collie weaves its way through the high parts, bending them askew beneath its paws. It finds Noah amongst the geraniums and leaves long wet streaks on his face.

"Gerrof," Noah splutters. 

Jacob grins and extends a hand, ruffling the dog's coat, and Liv fishes the camera from her bag and takes a shot. It's like something out of a calendar.

"Liv," Jake pipes up. "Where'd you get that from?"

"Birthday present," she replies. Noah stills a little but doesn't say anything.

"Oh," he smirks. "I thought you'd nicked it."

"You're not gonna kick this one off a bridge, are ya, Noah?" she asks with a smirk: she could stay bitter at him, but she lives with him and he has too much on his plate for such a little kid. For example, Charity bollocked him this morning for misplacing the biscuit barrel. It was just a telling-off but she had this awful exasperated edge to her voice and Noah looked so _sad_ , Liv just wanted to like, hug him or something.

He looks up from his mop of blonde and smiles. "I'll do me best."

 

Liv's phone becomes frantic as the sun reaches the top of the sky. At first she thinks it's Aaron, but then she looks at the screen and sees  _3 missed calls from Gabby_ and immediately knows that something's up.

"Gabs?" 

Gabby's voice is thick. "Liv," she says, then sobs. 

" _Gabby_ ," Liv straightens up, alarmed. "Gabs, what's up?"

There's a few seconds of choking and tears before Gabby finally says, "It's my dad."

 

-

 

Gabby knew it was bound to happen at some point; like everything about his illness, it was a wave, cool and unstoppable. 

She just never really expected it to happen. It's weird to think like that. To know something is inevitable but hope that maybe God can bend the rules because, I don't know, he likes you for some reason. Ashley was a priest, after all. He was nothing if not faithful.

Laurel comes home red-faced and sits all the children down. She adopts her baby voice and it's wasted because both Gabby and Arthur know exactly what's coming and having it whispered to them doesn't make it hurt any less.

Dotty gurgles, clueless. Arthur's eyes drop to his feet and big, fat tears roll down his cheeks; Doug stands in the background, irrelevant as always, and bites his tongue. Gabby doesn't know what to do with her hands. She plays with the pleats of her skirt, clenches until her knuckles whiten.

"I'm going upstairs," she says. 

"Gabby, wait —"

"Leave me alone."

A bedsheet is exceptionally good at muffling screams, it seems. She screams and screams until there's nothing left in her lungs. Then she hears Arthur whining and it builds back up and she screams again.

Dizzy, she sits up. There's a damp ring on the pattern.

It hasn't sunk in yet, but it will. It's kind of sitting on her skin at the moment. She's dreading the moment it finally does.

 

When it does hit, it hits her square in the chest, knocks her off her feet.

And like all misery, it starts with apparent happiness.

A few days pass. She doesn't have to skive; Laurel lets her have days off school. Arthur sullenly refuses to talk to anyone and Laurel cries and cries and her mum tries to have everything under control. Doug stays in the background and festers, choking on a million  _I told you so_ 's _._ He says it at one point — not exactly that but a variation — and Gabby throws coffee at him. She wishes it had still been hot.

(She remembers those Polaroids she took of her dad, that day when he wasn't as bad as he normally was. When he could form coherent sentences and look her in the eye and call her  _Gabby.)_

Then she flies upstairs and walks into her room to find it ransacked.

Her yell carries throughout the entire house. " _Who's been in my room?"_

Arthur tries to deny it but his eyes give him away.

She's not mad, at first. She's not. It's just an inconvenience. There are worse things happening right now. 

("I was just looking for my colouring book," he protests, innocently. The swipes beneath his eyes are puffy and red. "I didn't mean to make a mess.")

And you know what? She'd have forgiven him. She was close, but then she found the photos.

Three of them on the floor, one on the desk: little faded squares, bordered with white and dulled with exposure. The images that used to be are barely there, almost entirely non-existent up to the corners, now just a blur of white and the inky blue of Ashley's pyjama top. Flickered out, like some kind of candle, like a flame.

She crumples.

God, she could have killed him.

 

-

 

It stuns them all, that phone call. They spend the rest of the day in awkward silence and when Liv gets home, she finds Aaron and wraps herself around him.

"What've ya done?" he asks, but he accepts all of her, holds her close.

"I love ya," she says. "I just — I love ya."

He kisses the top of her head, gently. "I love you too."

She tucks herself into his awful jumper and believes him.

 

-

 

September arrives and so does autumn; the trees shrug on brown coats and the pavements turn shades of gold with all the fallen leaves. And Liv treasures her camera like it's her child.

Everyone is fascinated by it, which is funny because they have all phones in their back pockets. Maybe it's the buttons. People always like figuring things with loads of buttons on them out. Take lifts, for example, or keyboards. Or Liv Flaherty's fucking camera.

She takes a lot of pictures nowadays. She misses the nostalgic feel of the Polaroid, the graininess of the images and they way they fell out into her hands, but she likes this new one too. She likes the way the colours stay bright, and how she feels like she could cut herself on all the edges. Colours are important to her now; they never used to be something she cared about but now, whenever she sees a funny colour, she feels the need to capture it. The not-blue of the chicory flowers on the side of the road. The red-to-green gradient of the ivy up Smithy Cottage. 

The orange streaks in Aaron's hair, dyed by campfire light.

 

He takes them camping, her and him and Robert. Proper camping, too. The village is still damp with Ashley's death and it's a little suffocating, so he whisks them all out of there for the weekend. Robert buys a camping stove and Liv brings her camera and, it's fun. It brings things back down to earth for a while.

(She also figures out how to use the video function.

Which is helpful. Especially now she has video proof that Robert Sugden is shit scared of spiders.)

"There's a meteor shower tonight," Robert says. She's sat cross-legged on the hood of his car, camera in her lap. He's carrying two flasks of coffee, one milky, one black. "If the clouds part, we'll get a good view."

She takes the first flask; it warms the bones of her hands. "Ya think this'll catch it?"

"It'd make a hell of a photo if it does."

It's very late, or early, and Aaron is fast asleep in the tent, sleeping so deeply there's no chance of rousing him. So when two a.m. rolls around, it's just her and Rob, heads tilted upwards, watching stars leave tears in the night sky.

And he's right. It does make a good photo.

 

Her brother and his husband argue on the last day; the Sunday night. Liv doesn't really know why but the car ride home is stale and they don't talk.

She rolls her eyes and takes snaps of the forest trees. The dark sky turns them almost black.

 

 -

 

They're burning things on the park. Liv pulls out her phone and texts,  _gabs, ur missing all the fun x._

The reply comes immediately:  _looking after arthur & dotty x_

_can i come over then? x_

_sure. x_

 

She nicks some crisps from the Woolie and knocks on the door; Gabby answers, looking ever so tired. Dotty is on her hip. Daytime telly buzzes in the background.

"Morning," Gabby says. 

Liv gives her a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Hi."

Mulberry Cottage is very warm and stuffy. Everything seems to wear the cloak of Ashley: the kettle, the armchair, the bannister of the stairs. It's like everywhere you look he feels like he should be there but he just, isn't, and if it feels odd for Liv then she can't imagine how Gabby must be doing.

Arthur is upstairs, in his room. Gabby puts Dotty down and collapses onto the sofa with a huff. 

"Where's Laurel?" Liv asks, sitting down next to her.

Gabby swallows. "At the cemetery. She can't be arsed to look after her kids, rather just stare at a headstone for hours."

Liv looks at her, long and careful, before taking Gabby's hand and squeezing. "Are ya okay?"

"Yeah," Gabby says. "'m fine."

She just looks so —  _sad_. She looks like someone's just stepped on her heart. "I'm here, if ya wanna talk. I mean that goes without saying, but — y'know."

The log fire's burning; it warms the edges of Gabby's eyes. "Can you stay?" she asks. "Until Laurel comes back."

Liv sighs, gently. "Course."

 

She's showing Gabby her new camera when a memory dredges up from somewhere in her head.

"Eh," she begins. "What were ya doing with that camera when I walked in? A hair thing or something?"

Gabby pauses, doe-eyed, then rolls them. "Brace yourself."

 

Eight hundred and forty-two views, two hundred likes and it's nothing but Gabby straightening the ridges from Liv's wild hair. She stares at herself on the screen, blinking slowly. Gabby looks like she's having the time of her life.

"I can't believe ya posted this," Liv says, but she's smiling. "I look awful."

Gabby nudges her. "You look great." Then she ducks down, close to Liv, and smirks. "Would look even better on that fancy camera."

 _Fuck's sake_ , Liv thinks. Especially when she's sat in front of the camera, having her hair fried by a curling wand.  _Fuck._

 

But it's made easier when she hears Gabby's laugh, sees her grin. Everything is easier when it's about Gabby.

 

-

 

Aaron works overtime at the scrapyard one day. Robert comes home looking a little disgruntled, with a furrow in his brows; Liv guesses he's had another fallout with her brother. She knows she's right when he gets a text message, glances at his phone then shoves it back in his pocket with a scowl. 

She's learned not to ask. It never gets her anywhere.

So instead, she pushes her homework to one side and stands up. "Can we go out?"

He looks up from his coffee with a frown. "What?"

"Can we go out?" she repeats. "I'm bored and ya look miserable."

He huffs. "Charming."

"When's Aaron getting back?" she asks; she notices the way his ears prick up at his name. God, he's in deep. It's like Aaron's a magnet and Robert has a metal core: you'd need to defy physics to pull them apart. 

"I dunno," he replies, flatly.

She's obviously getting nowhere, so she clucks her tongue against her teeth and scoops up her camera and is about to head upstairs when he speaks.

"Where do you want to go?"

She smiles a little and turns round. "I dunno," she says. "Cinema?"

"Alright," he nods. Then he grabs his coat, pockets his keys and they're in the car before Liv barely has time to grab a jacket. 

 _Damn_ , she thinks. _He must be bored._

 

You know those adverts in the cinema? The bright ones, the ones with swirl and stir with colours, the ones with details so precise they almost reach out from the screen? One of those comes on before the film (some thriller she saw the trailer for a few weeks ago. Nothing Oscar-worthy.) and — well, she's never really cared about them before. But an advert comes on and the camera sweeps over this landscape, a snowy mountain range; the sky is like spillage, dark and grey and oily, with these snow-capped peaks sticking up like daggers and all the breath kind of escapes from her lungs.

Robert must hear it, because he looks to her and whispers, "You know, if you're really getting into filming and photography and stuff, you could do that. As a job."

Liv looks up at the screen and thinks, _That's it. That's what I want to do._

And that's when Liv Flaherty decides that she's not going to miss a thing in her life, never again. She spent far too much of it missing everything before; missing a dad, missing a brother. But now she has one and kind of has the other and well, she's never letting them go.

 

On the drive home, she wastes her camera battery filming everything. The blur of the passing scenery, and Robert messing with the radio, feeding the stereo with discs. 

Her phone rings. "Yeah?"

"Liv? Where the hell are ya?"

"Oh," she says. "Hi, Aaron. We went —"

"Is Robert with ya?" he sounds angry, stressed. His voice is pulled taut.

She coughs. "Yeah."

"Put him on."

"Can't," she says. "He's driving."

"Driving?" His frown is audible. "Where've ya both been?"

"To the cinema."

"The  _cinema_? Liv, it's a school night!"

She looks at the clock: half eight. "It's not late, Aaron," she says, uneasily. Robert is clearly eavesdropping, eyes flicking from the road.  _What's up?_ he mouths. Liv just shrugs.

"Right, well, tell him to put his foot down." 

Then the line goes dead, and Liv tucks her phone back into her pocket. Something in her stomach is stirring, that ominous gut feeling that tells her: something is wrong.

 

-

 

They're like, doing their best not to argue. The words are sticking to the back of their teeth and Liv can tell that as soon as she's out of the picture, as soon as they think she's asleep, things are going to kick off. God knows what over; they're both in bad moods, the tiniest thing will probably make them snap.

She tries not to eavesdrop, she really does, but it's in her blood. She physically can't help it.

( _We never spend any time together_ , Aaron says. He isn't crying or anything but he sounds upset, exasperated even.

Robert frowns. _What are you on about_? _We_ always _spend time together. We're_ married _._

 _Yeah, we are._ There's a bitter edge to her brother's voice.  _It dun't feel like it, though._ )

Then one of them closes a door and it turns into an indecipherable blur. Liv swallows and goes back to bed, opens a Snapchat from Gabby: it's of her, snapping her straighteners like jaws, smiling a little at the corner.

 

-

 

The next morning, when Liv pads downstairs, they're both sat eating breakfast and playing footsie under the table. 

She makes herself a cup of tea and a bowl of cornflakes and when she sits, a look flies between them. A  _you talk first_ look. Aaron caves.

"Hey," he begins. "How'd ya feel about going on holiday for a few days?"

Liv stops, mouth half-full. "Wha'?"

"Ya know," he continues. "Just, a few days off out somewhere. Scotland, maybe, or Wales again."

Something smells fishy; Liv draws her eyebrows together. "Ya normally give me shite for skipping school."

"Language," Robert butts in, tapping her with a rolled-up newspaper. 

"Yeah, but you've been doing well recently," Aaron says. "Your grades have gone up."

"You mean she's actually been attending." 

Liv looks at Robert then drops her eyes down to her bowl. She's been going to school simply because Gabby doesn't hang out with them very much anymore — she's always busy with Dotty or Arthur, or she says she's feeling ill but it's obvious by the balloons of skin around her eyes that she's been crying so hard she can't see. A Jacob without a Gabby is not a fun Jacob to be around, and well, she doesn't need to leave the house to be with Noah.

Fucking Ashley. He took everything with him when he died. Selfish bastard. 

"A few days off won't kill ya."

It's not like she's going to argue; she regularly chooses to sit in a smelly barn with her friends over a classroom. And although there's definitely a weird atmosphere floating around, the idea of a holiday certainly piques her interest. Especially when she thinks of all the photos she could take.

 

-

 

They go everywhere. It's definitely Robert who picks the spots because they're all so gorgeous, so photogenic. He's clearly thinking of her.

The house in Scotland is on the coast, at the feet of gentle sea, next door to a family with three Alsatians and a Dachsund. They go to the beach when the weather picks up and the sand is laden with pebbles of every gradient, black to snow white. They even hop on a ferry during the Easter holidays and go to France, getting by on Aaron's mangled attempt at the lingo. 

She videos it all and uploads them to her laptop as soon as she gets home. They disappear somewhere in the depths of her files but they're there, and that's a comfort.

 

-

 

It is November. The village is very cold, but not cold enough to snow, so rain comes down in fine needles, the type that get into your eyes as you walk. And Liv is in Wylie's barn with her friends, towers of hay erected around them; the only light streams in through holes in the roof and from their phone screens.

She swiped a bottle of something or other from the Woolpack bar and it's being passed around. Her lips are numb and tingly.

"Liv," Noah says, quietly. "Liv, you alright?"

Her thoughts are elsewhere: mainly on last night, when her brother sat on the couch and didn't talk to anyone for a long time. Robert chewed the inside of his cheek and flew upstairs, isolated himself. All Liv could do was keep her eyes on the television until she started seeing in squares.

"Sommat's up with my brother," she murmurs. Noah softens. He understands.

Gabby pipes up, "Isn't it always?" and is met with three pairs of glaring eyes. Then she mutters and says, "What's Robert done now?"

Liv bites her lip. "I dunno. Probably sommat shady." It's normally Robert's fault, right? Mistakes seem to be all he's capable of sometimes. But that's unfair; you could say that about her, and you'd be a hundred percent right, but he never does. He almost — it's like he believes in her, which is a nice thought.

"They'll be fine," Jacob says, the voice of reason. "It's probably their way of saying they love each other, ripping each other's heads off. Look at me and Gabs."

"And they got married, didn't they?" Noah adds. "They wouldn't have done that if they didn't want to."

Liv nods. "Yeah, you're right. I'm just being daft."

Noah smiles and ruffles her hair. He has to stretch to reach.

 

She stumbles home, slightly drunk, and takes pictures of the sodden village. The dusk is grey, the colour of metal. The camera picks up the way the streetlamp gives everything an orange aura, a honey-coloured haze.

The lights in the back room of the Woolpack are still on; she can see the yellow squares of the window. They're still awake, probably at each other's throats, and she doesn't really want to walk into that. Their bad patches are usually over as soon as they arrive but that transition period is messy, and overall just best to avoid.

The park is still, eerily so. She dries a swing with her sleeve and sits, fingers curling around the chains.

The sun sets colourlessly and the sky is dull; some stars have the nerve to rise and Liv's grateful for them. The camera hangs like a millstone round her neck and she takes a few photos — it's basically a reflex at this point, like breathing. She sees something pretty, she saves it, she captures the memory. 

But then she sees Robert emerge from the pub. 

Well, she hears it first, the door slam. It sounds permanent. Then he's making his way up the village road with his hands shoved firmly in his pockets and his shoulders hunched into almost perfect right angles. His eyes never leave the ground; he stares so hard, he could burn holes.

She wants to ask but she also really doesn't.

He must sense her, though, because he looks up. He looks rough, too. Red-rimmed and sore amongst a stony face. Whatever emotion was in him has clearly poured out through his eyes.

"Liv," he observes. "What're you still doing out? It's freezing. Bloody hell, you haven't even got a coat."

She shrugs, dumb. The alcohol is keeping the chill out, really. "'m fine."

He gives her that damn look. "You're shivering."

Is she? She doesn't notice. She must be. Why her body has to betray her like that, she doesn't know. Sometimes she wishes she could be less like her brother — blatant, easily openable — and more like Rob. If the whispers in the village are anything to go by, he has horror stories inside of him, bitten back and hidden but you'd never been able to tell.

The park gate creaks open and in he walks, shrugging out of his own jacket and putting it over her shoulders before she has the chance to protest. It's very comfy. It smells like his cologne.

He sits on the swing beside her. His legs are too long and he has to sway a little. "Are you alright?" 

She bites her lip. "I was gonna ask _you_ that."

Something flickers across his face. "Don't need to worry about me, Liv. That's my job."

"Yeah, but —"  _You're like my dad._ "We're related, aren't we?"

He smiles a little. "Yeah."

"Right," she says, with conviction. "So what's going on with you and me brother?"

Robert blinks, slowly, and looks up at the stars like they'll help him find his words. "We're fine," he lies. "It's just a rough patch."

"I'm not a baby, Robert," she mutters. "Don't play dumb."

"I'm _not_."

"So you're both fine?"

He pauses, very clearly debating between lying again or actually telling the truth. He chooses the latter. "Actually, we, er — we were thinking of taking a break."

" _Eh_?" Liv frowns, stunned. She knew it was bad, but — "You've been married five minutes."

"I know," he argues. "That's what I keep telling him."

"But?"

He glances at her, blue in the moonlight. "It's not your concern."

Liv swallows; she feels her jaw clench. "You're married to me brother. It _is_ my concern."

"It's not like that." He's so skittish, Robert: furtive, always dodging around the truth. "You wouldn't understand, Liv."

Her blood boils. She wonders how far Robert's willing to go with that excuse, if he's forgotten who she is and what she's been through, and how much cannier she is than him and her stupidly ponderous brother. That's the annoying thing about adults. They always think they're in the right.

"Right, so it's definitely your fault," she says bitterly. Robert recoils, offended, and for once Liv doesn't really care. "What have ya said to him?"

"Nothing," he protests, before shrinking a little. "I mean — nothing that makes sense."

"Dunno why you both can't just _talk_ to each other."

"Aaron's not great at 'feeling' talking. I'm not either, to be honest."

She can relate to that. "But you're married. You're telling me you've been together all this time and never talked to each other? You're always sappy as hell when _I'm_ around."

He smiles this small, sad smile. "Not that long. But I get your point."

They both go quiet, listening to the gentle rhythm of the night, of the wind in the trees and the way the swing creaks with age. The chains have rusted in parts. They leave little brown flakes on her fingers.

"Are ya moving out, then?" she asks; her voice comes out unexpectedly flat. Behind her eyes, things are stirring.

Robert's voice, however, comes out shaky. "I dunno. Probably."

"Where to?"

"Vic's box room, again. I need to call her about it."

"You're still gonna talk to us, right?" She has to make sure. "I mean, you're not gonna forget we exist."

He huffs, a humourless laugh, and the corners of his lips turn up artificially. "Like I could." 

It sounds sincere. At least she has that.

 

-

 

She skips school the next day (it's double physics, she's missing nothing). She's so tired her eyelids are glued shut; there are little dumbbells on her lashes.

It is four o'clock, and freezing cold, so she shrugs on a jumper and goes downstairs to make a cup of tea. Robert is on the couch beneath a blanket, face screwed up and disgruntled. He looks unhappy.

Liv stops the kettle before it whistles. Her brother's husband slash mate slash mortal enemy slash whatever grey area this is mutters something and turns over.

He'd walked her home in abject silence, never once lifted his eyes from the road cracks and she'd kept his coat. It's draped over his shoulders now like a cape, damp at the shoulders. He's no hero, though; idiot couldn't even save his own relationship. He'd saved her brother, damnit, why couldn't he keep him?

 

Robert blinks. "Liv?" he coughs. "It's early. Go back to bed."

She obliges, silently. Her brother's door is ajar so she closes her own softly, then dives under the covers. 

She spends the next few hours gearing herself up; it's weird, knowing you're about to lose someone rather than just losing them on the spot. But it's not like he's  _leaving_ leaving, he'll only be across the road, and it's only _Robert_.

It'll be weird not seeing him in the morning or smelling his cologne in the bathroom, but she'll still have Aaron. She loves Aaron and Aaron loves her and it's like Gabby with Jacob, isn't it? He's her constant. He's her reality. He wouldn't leave her for anything.

 

-

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> starting to get angsty... lmao i couldn't resist :P


	3. action

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the narrative in this chapter is all over the shop, because i wanted to do a time jump but include flashbacks and it all kind of culminated and ended up like this. anyways, for simple explanation, there's a significant jump between this chapter and the last :) oh, and extra rob/liv.

-

 

"I hate ya," Aaron says, crunching on a piece of toast. "At least let me drive ya in."

Liv stands up straight and dusts herself down. It's early, streams of honey-coloured sunlight push in through the curtains. "It's college, Aaron, 'm not joining the army."

"There's colleges round here."

"And if Uredale weren't such tight-arses, I'd be staying round here."

Not even all the heating in the Mill can warm the place up; autumn arrived in the village with a vengeance. Blood red ivy sprouted up the sides of the house and the wind rattled the windows inside their sills, making everything sound hollow. It only amplified how empty the place is: two residents and like, eight bedrooms. It doesn't really add up.

Liv blinks, counts her things. "Portfolio. Shit, where's my portfolio?"

"Language," Aaron frowns. "And it's by the fridge. Top shelf. Mutt was gonna get it otherwise."

From the corner, the dog stirs and opens one careful eye. Liv glares at her. 

"Not my fault the thing's feral," she mutters, disappearing into the kitchen. Aaron looks more offended than the dog, who simply ducks her head and goes back to sleep.

(They'd got a dog last year; an Alsatian, of course, brown with smudges of blonde. It had wide eyes and looked at Aaron like he'd just hung the moon or something. Then it tore up Liv's sketchbook and made her room smell of animal and she's never really forgiven it since.)

Aaron shoves in the rest of his breakfast and thumbs the crumbs from his beard. "Right," he says. "Got everything?"

Liv pauses, and does a quick count to distract the nerves brewing in her stomach. "Yep."

"Portfolio?"

She raises the square of leather in her arms. "Check."

"Bus pass?"

"Check."

"Camera?"

It's in her backpack, sat in its case. "Check."

"Keys?"

"Check. Wait — no, check. Hang on."

Aaron rolls his eyes. It's always the keys.

She rummages around in her pocket before producing them, swirling them round her finger. The metal glints beneath the ceiling light. Her keyrings jingle noisily: the green one has faded and the one from that arcade in Blackpool is almost in two halves but she doesn't toss it. She doesn't want to.

"Right, I'm off," she announces. Her palms are starting to sweat a little.

"Oi," Aaron frowns, before she can go. "That's all I'm getting?"

Liv lets out a huff but obliges, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around the broadness of her brother's shoulders. It's quick but he holds her tight, squeezes slightly. "Softie."

He doesn't deny it. "Go on, then. Don't burn the place down."

She grins a little. "I'll do me best."

 

Gabby meets her at the bus stop. Her hair's up in a messy bun and her foundation finally matches her skin tone for once.

"Got your bus pass?" she asks. Liv produces it from her pocket with a flourish. "Good. Almost forgot mine this morning." The sky is the exact white of milk, padded with clouds; it drains the colour from everything, makes it all look dull. 

Liv smiles, looks down the empty stretch of road. "Bet ya this bus is late, anyway."

Gabby grumbles. "Better fucking not be."

"How long have ya lived here, Gabs?" she smirks; it's like when they used to skip lessons, fly up to Hotten and traipse around. Back before Ashley died and the meadow got concreted over and Robert — yeah. Before all that. "It's always late."

 

Leeds is big and built-up and smells of smog. The college is on a street corner, protruding out, casting boxy shadows on the pavement.

"Fancy," Gabby comments as they pile off the bus.

She stares up at it, the orangey bricks and white accents. The movement is like a reflex.

Gabby smiles. "Photo?"

Liv angles the camera up and turns the lens. "Of course."

She sends it through to her brother, along with  _got here fine x_ , before heading inside. Gabby reaches down and laces their fingers together, blue nails bright against Liv's pale skin. Nice and steady. 

She sighs a little; Liv's lost a lot of things but Gabby was never one of them, and whoever up in the stars she can thank for that, she will.

 

-

 

Robert moved out a little after Christmas. Properly moved out. Not to Victoria's box room like he'd said, but to a whole new flat in a whole new apartment building, in a whole new town. He took all his stuff with him in boxes and piled them into his car, and was gone by lunchtime. 

She walked in on him packing; in his and Aaron's room, bent double over a tower of shirts. "Liv," he said when he heard the door open. "You alright?"

She swallowed, chewed the inside of her face. "I've kicked ya in the balls before. I'll do it again if I have to."

"Charmed," he blinked, politeness gone. "What do you want?"

There were too many answers she could have spat at him:  _I want you to stay. I want you to put all your stuff back and go in there and make up wit—_ "Just seeing if ya needed a hand."

It flashed across his face and tightened his jaw: the threat of emotion. "No, ta. I'm fine."

He wasn't fine, anybody could see it. His knuckles were white on his clothes and he did his best to avoid looking at her, but he had to when she walked in and sat on the bed. This is the Liv Flaherty way, isn't it? Get attention by any means necessary; even if it means annoying the shit out of somebody.

"Liv, seriously," he said. "I'm almost done."

"At least wait a while," she argued. "Ya can't leave straight after Christmas. It's not fair."

"Not fair to who?" He straightened up, a floral print dangling from his fist. "Your brother?"

She shrugged, slowly. "All of us."

"Yeah, well," he sighed. "Life's not fair, Liv. Get used to it."

There was venom in his voice, a sharp edge; whether it was defensive or attacking, Liv couldn't figure out, but it stunned her a little. She'd heard rumours about his ruthlessness. With the way he was around her and Aaron, she'd discounted it as a myth. It wasn't physically possible for someone who got people to hate him so much they put a bullet in him to look at someone the way he looked at Aaron; it just wasn't. It didn't make sense.

She soured a little. "Ya don't need to tell _me_ that."

Then he let out a long breath and his shoulders lost their hunch, and that was as good as submission. "Yeah, I know. 'm sorry."

 

-

 

Jacob didn't apply to Leeds like the rest of them: he chose Uredale, studying hospitality and catering. Liv sees him sometimes, across the village, always wearing a denim jacket. They don't talk very much anymore.

She comes home from college, knackered. Some strands of her hair have escaped its braid and her bra strap has been sneaking its way down her shoulder.

He's stood there at the bus stop, nose deep in a folder. There's that little furrow in his brow that he gets when he's concentrating and his lips move in silent speech. He's grown like a weed and his hair has darkened like the trees; Liv's never met his dad but she imagines that he looks just like him. He has that kind of face, those kinds of features that travel down a lineage. 

Sometimes she realises that she and Jacob are more similar than they first thought: missing dad, taken in by family, raised with a not-father. 

They used to talk about that.  _David's my dad_ , he said.  _Not by blood but like, I see him as one._ And she'd think of Robert and wouldn't be able to say  _yeah, same here_ because it tasted too bitter. She never loved Gordon but she kind of did and it still hurts, to know she once loved someone like that.

"Hey," she says. The bus pulls away with a yell.

He looks up and blinks. "Liv."

His eyes are still warm and blue. She misses him.

"Ya alright?"

He gestures down to the folder. "Going mad. You?"

She shrugs, holding up the camera as if it's an answer. "Just got back from college."

"Cool," he nods, before finally asking the thing that's clearly been itching at him. "Have you seen Gabs anywhere?"

"She's staying in Leeds for a bit longer," Liv says. "Catching the late bus back."

"Oh." Jacob's eyes go — very dark. "Oh, okay."

 

They are in the barn. Wylie's barn, of course: it's tradition. Everywhere smells like straw and nostalgia and Jacob is stretched across a bale like a lazy cat. He is no less lanky and stringy than he was when he was fourteen, all soft and pillowy.

(She lost her virginity in this barn, to Jacob of all people. Gabby had gone home and Noah could barely keep his eyes open so he left too. It was just them, shadowy in the dark; the conversation came upon that topic somehow. _Bound to be disappointing_ , Liv had said, and Jacob shrugged and said, _Don't know till you've done it, I guess_ and then they did.

When it was over and done with, Liv picked up her top and shook herself. _Told you so._

Jacob just smiled, shyly. _See you in the morning_. Nothing was weird.

She left and tried not to think about how he probably saw Gabby when he closed his eyes.)

 

"I miss you all," he admits. There's a twig of hay trapped in his hair; Liv reaches up and plucks it free. "I never see you anymore."

She swallows. "That's college for ya. Gotta actually _do_ shit with our lives."

Jacob nods. He was always the one in their little group that everybody knew would be somebody. He wouldn't just be another kid from this stupid village who stayed and vegetated; he'd actually go on and become  _something_. He deserves it out of all of them, if anything.

"What did you take again?" he asks.

Liv gives him a look. "What do ya think?"

His lips quirk up a little. The camera sits comfortably in her lap, tangled in its strap. "Is it working out okay?"

She shrugs. "Yeah, I mean — it's going out and taking pictures. I've been doing it for long enough."

"I'm surprised you've still got that thing," he remarks. "Thought you'd have upgraded by now."

Her smile falters slightly, eyes dropping to the rounded corner and the hairline cracks in the lens, the one which has been causing more hassle than she'd care to admit. The strap has teeth marks on it from the dog and there's an unhealthy dent along the bottom of it but — it's _hers_. And it has history, okay? Too much to just chuck away. "They have cameras at college. Proper ones, like. I can borrow them."

A few words pass between them, unspoken. Liv frowns. "I know what you're thinking."

Jacob bites his lip; he has never liked confrontation. "C'mon, Liv."

"I don't wanna get rid of it," she says. "I can't afford a new one, anyway. This one works just fine."

"Looks like your dog's got hold of it," he comments, peering at the pinpricks in the corner.

"She has." That had been an eventful day: the mutt, racing around the Mill with it in her jaws, tail wagging like it was all just a game. Liv was ready to kill, to be honest. It took a hot chocolate and a long talking-to from Aaron to finally calm her down. 

Jacob sighs a little, flexes his arms. The hay softens beneath him.

"You miss him," he says, quietly.

Liv's head snaps up. "Not really."

His face twists.  _I don't believe you._ "It's been — what, nearly a year?"

She looks down, fiddles with the hem of her shirt. "Pretty much to the day."

That's something about Jacob: he's like Aaron, in which he has a kind face and a soft voice and he just makes you open up, even if you don't want to. "Ya think he'll come back?"

Liv swallows. "I dunno. I don't think so."

He hasn't called yet; not even on her birthday, which really fucked her up. She didn't know what she was expecting but she expected — _something_. A text or a card, a visit if she crossed her fingers.

But he didn't. So that's that.

What she ever expected from Robert fucking Sugden anyway, she doesn't know. He was nothing if unpredictable.

 

"How's your brother?" Jacob prompts. His voice is soft and mellow, that tone usually reserved for Gabby.

There's a pause, before Liv blinks twice and leans back against the hay bales. "Trying to forget he ever existed."

"Not going well?"

"No," she says, very quietly. "It's not."

 

-

 

"I'm sorry," Robert repeated, sitting on the bed beside her. Liv occupied herself with the sheets: they were a deep purple, rich and velvety soft. They felt nice to ball up in her hands. "I — sorry."

He apologised a lot. That seemed to be his thing: no matter what he said, what he did, it could always be fixed with a _sorry_. Like putting a plaster on a third-degree burn.

"I don't get it," she said. "How is leaving gonna help anything?" It was illogical. She'd had so many people leave her and look how she ended up.

Robert's shoulders fell and his eyes found the carpet. "It'll give us some time apart. To clear our heads and stuff."

Liv felt her stomach knot. "You've always had one foot out the door," she said, bitterly.

Beside her, Robert flinched. "That's not true."

She felt her eyes flash. "Yes it is." She was a Livesy, after all, not by name but by nature. How better else to deal with things but anger? "Ever since I came along."

"This isn't your fault," he said, almost automatically.

"Then whose is it?"

Liv's never known Robert to be speechless but this was one of those times. His mouth opened and closed, like a fish, then he swallowed something down and let out a long, exasperated noise. The air felt wrong. Her brother's weight shifted in the kitchen.

He eventually spoke. "I don't know. But it isn't yours."

That wasn't good enough, wouldn't be in a million years, but it was all that she'd get. "Okay."

 

-

 

It's late, the moon is bright. There's a network of stars above them and the leaves crunch under their steps.

"Liv," Noah hisses; he's invisible bar the cloud of yellow on his head. "Liv — ow, fuck."

His hoodie gets caught on a tree branch. Liv stops and snickers and goes back to help him; he looks up at her with his big green eyes. "Ya moron."

"Not my fault," he mumbles. "Can't fucking see anything."

Unlike Jacob, he hasn't grown, still the runt of the pack. He doesn't gel his hair anymore and Liv prefers him like this: softer, like he's not trying to fight the whole village. She doesn't see him very much either, not since they moved out of the Woolie. Noah had grinned in front of his mum and pestered her for Liv's room but that night, he'd hugged her very tightly and left little damp circles on her shoulder.

"Hang on," he says, untangling himself. 

"You're an idiot," Liv teases, ruffling his hair. He squirms and ducks from under her hand, trying not to smile but he does. 

He bats at her, playfully. "Says you."

 

Jacob is there, perched on a log. Gabby is next to him with her legs stretched out and her skirt swaying across her knees. Their hands are touching, close but not linked.

Gabby lights up when they appear. "There you are."

"Yeah, sorry," Liv says. "Noah got caught on a tree."

He glares at her and sits down, pulling his sleeves over his hands. "Fucking thing."

It's the first time in a long time that they've all been together, here, lost somewhere in Home Farm's woods. The night sky has turned milky with clouds, and somewhere in the distance a car rolls by. Liv breathes in the woodland air and holds herself.

They used to light campfires here and roast nicked marshmallows from the shop. But then Lawrence saw the smoke and came running into the forest with his gun and Jacob had a panic attack and — it didn't really end well for anyone. So now they basically have to sit here, half-blind in the dark, trying to figure out each other's outlines. It's not as fun.

Jacob looks stale; there's a brittleness to his eyes.

Gabby notices it first. "Jake," she says, softly. "You okay?"

He looks down at the trodden leaves at his feet and kicks them. "I think David's gonna break up with Tracy."

Liv feels the inside of her mouth go sour. Everybody swallows, nervous.

"Why?"

He shrugs. "Just got a feeling. He keeps avoiding her."

Liv's chest starts to ache; she can relate. "They'll be fine."

Jacob bites back what looks like a scoff and tugs on his lower lip. "I know," he says. "Always have been." Then he dares to glance at her from across the charred remains of a firepit and she understands all of it.

"Dun't matter if they do," she adds. "You've got us."

Noah goes to say something but decides against it, probably for the best. Probably something about how he doesn't have them anymore. Not really. They don't even catch the same bus anymore.

It goes quiet for a minute before Jacob speaks. "It's alright," he says. "I'm alright."

Liv squints and wonders if he really believes himself.

 

She gets her camera out. Of course she does — it seems to be the only thing that brightens them up, sometimes. When they were kids, on those shitty days when the sun didn't come out and they were huddled together in a barn, she just needed to snap some photos and things would unfurl, open up. It was a magic trick.

It's too dark to see. The viewfinder is a bottomless black square.

"Turn the flash on," someone suggests. Liv smirks and presses a button.

"It's bad," she warns them. "Like, really bad."

Gabby sniffs. "Go ahead, blind me. Wouldn't mind it, really, it'd stop me seeing Arthur trashing the place."

Liv hasn't seen Arthur in a while; she has no idea what he looks like now. She imagines a stretch of brown hair and two wet doe-eyes and that's all she can really remember of him.

She takes one. The flash is otherworldly and they all look pale, washed-out on the picture. A circle of ghosts.

"Fuck me," Noah scowls, rubbing his eyes.

Liv smirks, zooming in. Gabby's flinching and Jacob looks like a deer caught in headlights, frozen with shock. The circles beneath his eyes are unnaturally purple. "Ya could all try smiling."

"Seriously, that's fucking painful." Noah blinks, twice, and shakes himself. Liv looks round the circle and her smile falters; nobody is smiling, nobody is gearing up for another photo. They're all just — sat there. There's a crease in Jacob's forehead and Gabby busies herself with picking her polish off, leaving white scratches on the nails underneath.

"Oh," she says. She sounds very small. "Sorry."

 

-

 

The first week or so after he left was the worst. Nobody seemed to stop crying. Aaron was constantly puffy-eyed, and at night Liv could hear him through the walls. She walked in once, turned the overhead light on and saw his heart in two halves on the floor, amongst the carpet tufts. 

"He'll be back," she said, uneasily. Like she didn't really believe it. "It's just a break."

Aaron pawed at his face, took in a gulp of air. "Yeah, I know." He didn't believe it either.

There had just been something in the way Robert had crawled into his car and trailed down the road, in the way of his left indicator lighting that said,  _this is it._ She didn't say it but she was thinking it, and Aaron was too. It passed between them all like an odd electrical current then fizzled out, and then her brother stormed inside and something glass shattered.

 

Chas cornered her in the pub. "Look after him, yeah? He needs you right now."

She felt like snapping off a pump and flooding the place. Felt like grabbing Chas by the shoulders and yelling, _you're his mum,_ you _look after him._

"Yeah," she said instead. "Course I will."

 

-

 

The creek is desolate. She's never been here before in autumn, usually only in summer when flowers sprouted and the bracken was green. Now it's this big riot of russet and gold and the river rushes fast, frantic like it's in a hurry to be somewhere.

She hasn't avoided going home like this since she was fourteen.

It's not like she doesn't _like_ going home. Aaron is at home, and her bedroom, and yes, she'll even count the fucking dog. It's just that sometimes, days like this happen, and she just needs to get away from it all.

 

-

 

The Christmas before he'd left — the last one they'd had together — had been nice. The Woolie was lit up and bright and they'd sat around the dining table, a bit awkward, a bit unsure. Robert had cooked (and done a good job, to be fair) and he'd given her a set of lenses for her camera. 

"Here," he said, lining them up. "Five hundred millimetre, twenty-four millimetre, fort—no, thirty-five millimetre —"

Liv let herself smile. "Robert," she said. "That means nothing to me."

He paused, then mirrored her, shoulders dropping in that gentle way. "I know. Best to just get to know them yourself."

And she did; she got a picture of him, red paper crown on his head, sharp yet hazy with the soft focus. He was smiling but it didn't reach his eyes.

 

He offered her a cracker. They pulled: it snapped and the air smelt like smoke for a quick second before clearing. 

"Ugh," he said, picking up the joke paper and reeling off something that made everybody groan. Liv looked down at the selection she'd gotten; another paper hat, a joke about a penguin and this small plastic ring with a colourless jewel.

She frowned, picked it up. It felt cold between her fingers. "The hell?"

"Mood ring." Robert pointed; the guide was tucked under her plate, crumpled at the corners. She slid the ring onto her middle finger and it stood still before blossoming yellow. "And that means — right, yellow means you're going to laugh."

She didn't. She held her breath and waited, frowning a bit, before the anticipation ripped through her and a giggle escaped. A proper childish giggle. It turned her bright pink.

Now he was smiling. "It works."

"Bugger off," she said, shoving him lightly.

Aaron watched them from the doorframe, looking between them. He had cranberry sauce all over his fingers and his hat had ripped down the side.

 

-

 

Her phone chimes. "Liv?"

"Hi, Gabs," she says. She can almost smell the whisky fumes down the line. "Are ya okay?"

"Me and Jake have had a fight." A sniff, a cough. "He doesn't like me anymore."

Liv sighs; she's sat through this before. "I'm sure he does, Gabby. Ya know what you two are like."

"No," she says, throat thick. Then she spits the rest out. "They're moving away, him and David and Trace. Moving down south or something, I — Liv, what do I do?"

Liv doesn't reply. Her mouth has gone like sawdust. She can feel the splinters on her tongue.

"He said we should break it up  — not that we ever were anything — I dunno." She swallows. "He can't leave us. It's Jake, I mean, it's _Jake_."

 

Liv's fingers move before her brain does; the call stops, dead. The air's dropped cold and the river's picked up, loud and hammering.

(Sometimes she stands on the bridge and looks down at the way the water foams at the edges. 

She thinks about the Polaroid, about where it is now.

About those photos she took out and let fade.)

 

-

 

March made the trees all pink and dainty, and for the first time in as long as she could remember, the river turned a lovely shade of blue instead of its usual dirt brown. She was sat on the grass with her friends, the rare sun on her shoulders. Her fingers were tracing paths between the freckles on Gabby's arm.

Gabby's hair was curly again. Through neglect more than choice.

"Have ya told your cousin?" Noah spoke first. "Whatshername, Jasmine."

She didn't think much about Jasmine. No one talked about her. She was a bit of a taboo.

"Nice one, Noah," Jacob said. "Love when you tell stories about family drama. Really brings the mood up."

Noah shrugged. "Just saying. Someone ought to — tell her, I mean."

"She knows," Gabby said, throat hoarse. "Laurel rung her the other night. How she got her number, I dunno."

Liv tensed up a little.

"When's the funeral?" Jacob asked.

Gabby swallowed. "Sometime next week." She looked up, shielding her eyes from the sun. "You're all coming, right?"

Everybody exchanged a look, before nodding in sync. Like machinery.

"Of course," Liv said, closing an arm around Gabby's shoulders.

"We'll stay with you, Gabs," Jacob chimed. "Promise."

"You're not getting rid of us," Noah added.

Liv threw him a playful smirk. "As much as we'd like to."

He scrunched up his nose. "Do one."

Gabby smiled for the first time in weeks. It was little and it was hesitant but it was there.

 

-

 

She walks home, jacket tightly wrapped around her shoulders. The sky is pink and purple and orange in places, patchy like a painting, laden with clouds; it splashes across the distant hills like a spill and Liv takes a photo because — you know.

The Mill is shadowy. In the right lighting it looks like the Addams family's house.

 

Aaron's still at work. The mutt yaps in delight as Liv walks in, ears perked and tail wagging; she has two different coloured eyes, one brown and one icy blue. Aaron wanted to call her Bowie at first.

The heating's on. Liv pulls off her sweatshirt and loosens her hair.

There's an assignment from college on her phone:  _expand your portfolio_ , it says.  _use different mediums, include past projects, etc_. It's not due in for a few days but it's not like she has anything to do this afternoon.

She texts her brother.  _where do u keep photo albums?_

 _aww,_ he replies.  _feeling sentimental?_

She scowls, sends the slanted-smile emoji.  _college stuff._

 _in the loft,_ he says.  _don't hurt yourself :P_

 

The attic of the Mill is a health hazard. Liv's amazed she doesn't have asthma yet.

She steps over the boxes, dislodging all the dust and dead insects as she passes. The light from her torch turns everything a little blue and a cobweb gets caught in her hair; it sticks to her fingers when she pulls it out, all grey and wispy. There's a lot of shit up here: old Christmas decorations, a bunch of furniture they never got round to binning when they redecorated, a stack of old blankets. All of it old and stagnant, smelling like mould.

 _Fuck_ , she mouths. Something snaps beneath her step.

 

She finds it eventually: all her old things. They're tucked into the back corner, covered in muck. Her hands come away black when she touches them.

Carrying a cardboard box down a ladder with a phone in your mouth is a skill. Especially with a jumpy Alsatian weaving around your legs, but Liv manages it, dumping it on the kitchen table as soon as she gets the chance. The dust billows up, catches in her throat, makes her cough.

 _found it?_ Aaron texts. She replies with a yes and tosses it aside.

The proper photos are at the top, in a neat pile; semi-professional, sharp and pointy. Born from those days she took on the village and all its weather with just her camera and a few filters. The Dingles garage sign is bright, slightly blurry in the rain. Vanessa's hanging flower baskets in high summer, little spheres of red and white. The bridge, highlighted by sun and dark underneath, detailed even to the wood grain.

Liv smiles to herself, taking a seat. Damn, even back then she was pretty good.

The next tier is — it hurts a little.

They're a little faded. Some more than others, though all have lost their colour. The glossiness has dulled and the corners are dog-eared and, well. The faces that look back at her seem alien. 

Noah looks so  _young_ , it's baffling. His hair is long and not gelled, sitting in one big cotton ball on his head. Jacob is short again with smooth skin and Gabby's lips are fiercely red and Liv; god. 

She looks down at her younger self. It wasn't that long ago but the difference is stunning. More than she'd care to admit.

More Polaroids emerge quickly, all of them in various states of pigment. Jacob smiling into the lens, squinting at the flash. Liv with a cigarette in her mouth. Gabby with her head on Liv's lap.

 

Her chest begins to ache, and she pushes it aside, that feeling.

But then she empties the box out and _fuck_.

Life is nothing if not unfair.

 

She honestly thought she'd chucked out her old laptop. She'd had to save up for a Mac for college and her old one, with its red lid covered in magazine stickers, had disappeared. She assumed Aaron had stuck it in a bin bag or on eBay.

It whirs itself to life. The screen is thick with dust and age but everything still works. A big photo of Aaron and the dog smiles back at her.

 _found my old laptop_ , she tells Aaron.  _thought u'd chucked it._

The links on the desktop are scattered. The typical ones: recycle bin, documents and stuff. One labelled _videos_. The photos folder is empty, as is Dropbox but the videos one is packed to the brim.

She clicks.

 _beach 06/08.mp4._  
_cambridge 12/11.mp4_  
_wales 01/08 (1).mp4_  
_wales 01/08 (2).mp4_  
_wales 01/08 (3).mp4_  
_york 12/12.mp4_  
_calais 19/04.mp4_

It's like staring into a lamp, or straight at the sun. It hurts your eyes. It makes you cry.

 

-

 

She used to hear their arguments through the walls.

 

_"So, I'm just — I think ya should see other people. Ya should."_

_Robert's voice creased. "I don't want to."_

_"No, Rob, I — I only meant —"_

_"I don't_ need _to."_

 

By the seventh or eighth time, they didn't bother closing the door.

 

-

 

Liv's filming, of course. They're on this big drag of beach, littered with pebbles and shells and stuff, and the sky is baby pink like candyfloss. The waves are rough, rousing, topped with white icing.  

Robert's hair is a tornado and his smile is effortlessly bright, like stars or something. The high contrast brings his freckles to the surface of his cheeks. 

Aaron is a little further up the beach, more of a shapeless dark blob than a human being, but even from the back he looks happy. His shoulders are relaxed, his head tilts up to the setting sun and the ends of his hair curl with sea salt.

The camera shakes and then Robert enters the frame. He runs a hand through his hair and grins.

His mouth moves, words come out. "How does it look?"

"Great," her voice says from offscreen. "Looks great. Really bright."

They both turn back to her brother; he's closer now, approaching the sea. The camera swings to Rob and he's looking back, slightly off-centre. Looking at her. "I'll give you a fiver if you push him in the water."

Everything shakes. "Like I need a fiver. Hold this."

 

Cambridge is a metropolis of old; everything is brick, has fancy outlines and carvings and architecture. 

Aaron comes into frame, sunglasses shading his eyes. "What ya filming this for?"

"Leave her alone," Robert says from behind them both. "She's got a knack for it."

She grins, and he grins back, before it cuts out.

 

"You're a dick."

"Oi, language."

"I know, I know. But ya are."

"What's the Welsh for dickhead?"

" _Aaron_."

The video doesn't show much of Wales; the camera is inside Liv's coat, pressed against her torso. Little glimpses of light tear through the black occasionally.

"Take after you then, dun'I?"

"Yes. Annoyingly so."

"She's me sister, Robert."

"I know. I'd be more worried if she _wasn't_ a total pain." 

It's chill, it's playful. It's without malice.

Liv wishes it could have stayed like that.

 

-

 

She reaches for the box; something inside of it rattles. 

It's carpeted with more photos, these less polished, and a dead spider. One of the dog's squeaky toys has made its way in there and Liv's about to toss it when she sees it.

Why the bloody hell she kept that ring, she doesn't know. Maybe there was something in the back of her mind. A small, niggling knowledge, an urge to keep it all. Everything that could ever remind her of him.

It's grubby and not very circular anymore but — 

 

She slips it on. It pales at the contact, turns a deep, dullish yellow.

So what does Liv Flaherty do?

 

She starts to cry.

 

-

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to [fiona](http://softrobertsugden.tumblr.com) for letting me bounce ideas off of her! and a big thanks to [claudia](http://inloveamateursatbest.tumblr.com) for not only giving me the idea but for making graphics for this fic, which is _insane_. i hope you enjoyed it!

**Author's Note:**

> title from [shannon celebi](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1195173-let-s-call-my-mood-melancholy-let-s-call-it-remembrance-or). i'm on [tumblr](http://turnerkanes.tumblr.com/) if you want to say hi!


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